Millions Of Krill Blanket Phuket Beaches, Spark Tsunami Fears

[webfact]

Millions of krill blanket Phuket beaches, spark tsunami fears

A local villager shows his sample of krill collected, which sparked fears of another tsunami.

Photo: Yodsak Jarana

Some of the millions of krill that washed ashore yesterday. Photo: Yodsak Jarana

PHUKET: -- Millions of krill yesterday washed up on the shores of Kata and Karon Beaches on Phuket's west coast, sparking fears among local residents of an impending tsunami.

The krill were first noticed at about 4pm. Onlookers told the Phuket Gazette that some were still alive at that time, but later died.

“They were orange and each had a pair of claws that were bigger than its body. Some people put them in buckets of water so they could swim and were floating,” said one local resident.

“They looked like baby lobsters, so some people were afraid that it was a bad omen that a tsunami would occur,” the villager added.

Prajuab Mokharat of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources and Wararin Wongpanit of the Phuket Marine Biological Center arrived to examine the phenomenon at about 7pm.

“People should not be afraid. We will find out exactly what has caused this, but it is most likely a result of climate change,” said Mr Prajuab.

The pair collected samples to take back to their respective offices to examine.

Into the night, Thais and foreigners streamed onto the beaches to see the krill first-hand.

One local taxi driver told the Gazette that he had never seen such an occurrence in his 44 years living in the area.

-- Phuket Gazette 2011-04-23

[siampolee]

“People should not be afraid. We will find out exactly what has caused this, but it is most likely a result of climate change,” said Mr Prajuab.

Inclined to agree with that comment above. Mother nature is ringing her warning bell concerning the fouling of our nest, problems are growing as time passes.

A tsunami ? I think not.

There is of course the possibility that the Krill were being pursued by marine creatures that like to feed upon them and in their escape pattern they may have (the Krill) beached themselves due to blind panic.

Well that my two theories anyway..

[furyrider]

I watch a us news clip the other day. It was a report on all the drum fish and the birds that washed up and fell to the ground on new years. They have started to attribute it to the magnetic poller shift that is going on. I think we are going to see a lot more of these things happening.

[adad]

With these much food in the water, one should be on the look out for whale sharks and other filter feeders. Wish I was there diving !

[RickBradford]

Krill swarms are a very common and well-studied phenomenon over many years -- they are naturally swarming creatures, (and have been for 100 million years) with denser formations likely to be caused by availability of food, of the level of oxygen in the water, or even the presence of predators.

The chance that it is a herald of a tsunami, or a symptom of 'climate change', is the same as it being a deliberate plague set in motion by an evil race of purple lizards living on the moon.

[pisico]

"People should not be afraid. We will find out exactly what has caused this, but it is most likely a result of climate change," said Mr Prajuab.

Inclined to agree with that comment above. Mother nature is ringing her warning bell concerning the fouling of our nest, problems are growing as time passes.

A tsunami ? I think not.

There is of course the possibility that the Krill were being pursued by marine creatures that like to feed upon them and in their escape pattern they may have (the Krill) beached themselves due to blind panic.

Well that my two theories anyway..

Climate change. Maybe. Not man made, for sure.

The 10 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan recently not only that moved the entire nation 8 inches, but also shifted the planet's axis to a measurable degree. That change in the axis certainly has an effect on the oceans' currents, the magnetic poles and the jet stream.

Volcanoes when they erupt have a similar effect: Saint Helens, Pinatubo, etc. Species dependent on their environmental habitat are sensitive to those abrupt changes and cannot adapt rapidly. The highly specialized species are the ones affected first.

Do not trade your SUVs anytime soon. They jury still out on whether we, the most intelligent of mammals, are responsible for Global Warming, er!... Climate Change, as the new and improved mantra reformulated by the inventor of the internet: Al Gore.

Edited April 23, 2011 by pisico

[Thaiered]

I know these natural phenomina occur and always have done so, maybe we just hear more about them these days with the quest for knowledge and comms but ....... only offering another possible point of view chaps so please don't shoot me ...... google "HAARP" and "Earthquakes" - some interesting stuff I think

Chodgi

[tartempion]

They jury still out on whether we, the most intelligent of mammals, are responsible for Global Warming, er!...

WE, The MOST INTELLIGENT creatures in the universe :cheesy:

Edited April 24, 2011 by tartempion

[whybother]

Climate change. Maybe. Not man made, for sure.

The 10 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan recently not only that moved the entire nation 8 inches, but also shifted the planet's axis to a measurable degree. That change in the axis certainly has an effect on the oceans' currents, the magnetic poles and the jet stream.

Volcanoes when they erupt have a similar effect: Saint Helens, Pinatubo, etc. Species dependent on their environmental habitat are sensitive to those abrupt changes and cannot adapt rapidly. The highly specialized species are the ones affected first.

Do not trade your SUVs anytime soon. They jury still out on whether we, the most intelligent of mammals, are responsible for Global Warming, er!... Climate Change, as the new and improved mantra reformulated by the inventor of the internet: Al Gore.

The recent Japan earthquake was 8.9.

One particular GPS station moved 2.4 m (8 feet). Particular areas moved, not the whole nation.

A day was shortened by 1.8 microseconds (1.8 millionths of a second).

The earth's axis shifted 10cm. The circumference of the earth is about 40,000 kms. So the shift was 25 billionths of a percent. Not really enough for a swarm of krill to lose their way and run into a beach.

Also:

"Earth's rotation changes all the time as a result of not only earthquakes, but also the much larger effects of changes in atmospheric winds and oceanic currents," he says. "Over the course of a year, the length of the day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, or about 550 times larger than the change caused by the Japanese earthquake."The position of Earth's figure axis also changes all the time, by about 3.3 feet over the course of a year, or about six times more than the change that should have been caused by the Japan quake."

[snuggzzz]

In the US recently a large shoal of fish swam into a harbour and died, it was found that they had been spooked by predators...........

[geriatrickid]

It will be interesting to see if the heavy rains that blanketed the area for the past month had an impact. (Water temperature changes, introduction of contaminants etc.) Often these errant swarms are due to the critters being over run by disease or parasites which disrupts their normal behaviour. The pasrasite and disease incidence is influenced by environmental conditions. Anyway, I thik it will be a number of factors that came together.

I just hope this doesn't impact the general fish population as there may be no more tiger prawns of tastey fish on the menu if the food chain is disrupted. I am so not into eating processed fish bits made to look like real fish.

[bunta71]

Krill swarms are a very common and well-studied phenomenon over many years -- they are naturally swarming creatures, (and have been for 100 million years) with denser formations likely to be caused by availability of food, of the level of oxygen in the water, or even the presence of predators.

The chance that it is a herald of a tsunami, or a symptom of 'climate change', is the same as it being a deliberate plague set in motion by an evil race of purple lizards living on the moon.

The purple lizard theory should be studied more methinks. I've never heard of lizards on the moon being that color or colour.

[Johpa]

Climate change. Maybe. Not man made, for sure.

The 10 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan recently not only that moved the entire nation 8 inches, but also shifted the planet's axis to a measurable degree. That change in the axis certainly has an effect on the oceans' currents, the magnetic poles and the jet stream.

Not climate change silly, climate change is a relatively slow and uneven phenomena that is best seen by noting temperature changes in mid-ocean depths and at arctic extremes. This event is probably due to normal oceanic events such as La Nina (this year) or El Ninos, the two best known global weather impacting oceanic events. Last night on the TV news they noted the exact same phenomena at Cape Cod, near Boston MA, with large krill formations just off the beach with the more easily observable large gatherings of the now rare "right whales" just off the beach. The demise of the right whales, once numbered into the tens of thousands, is a result of near extermination from human whaling activities, the same humans who are now very slowly planting the seeds of their own demise by sending their carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Only those with their heads buried very deeply into the sands beneath the krill still deny this effect. But the existence of weather phenomena such as La Ninas does mask the global climatic warming trend, as does the highly variable temperate weather patterns found in the homeland countries of most deniers.

[webfact]

Case of the crabs: Phuket expert speaks out

Bass breakfast: What looks like an alien invasion from this angle looks

like lunch to many predatory fish. Photo: PMBC

A close-up view of one crab larva, the species of which has yet to be determined.

PHUKET: -- The Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC) has identified overfishing as a likely cause of the millions of crab larvae washing ashore on Phuket beaches on Friday.

The tiny sea creatures that washed ashore at Kata and Karon Beaches were crabs, not krill as originally reported, explained PMBC Director Wannakiat Thubthimsang, who took live samples from the beach on Friday.

“They are baby sea crabs, but we’re not sure what kind. It’s obvious they live in the sea, not on shore, as their last pairs of legs are for swimming – not for walking like the legs shore crabs have,” he said.

“The crabs are in their megalopa period; about 29 to 40 days old. Their carapaces [“bodies”] are two to three millimeters wide and about 1mm long, but we cannot tell what kind of crabs they are,” he added.

Mr Wannakiat explained that a mature female crab produces up to 300,000 eggs at a time.

“So if many female crabs lay eggs at the same time, millions of larvae will be produced,” he said.

“During this megalopa period, these larvae serve as a major source of food for fish. We expect that overfishing is why so many of them survived,” said the marine biologist.

“Regardless, we are checking oxygen levels and other sea water quality indicators to ensure everything is normal in that area,” he added.

“It certainly was not a sign of any impending disaster,” Director Wannakiat said.

Crab larvae lack the kind of neural development needed to detect, let alone act upon, the kind of sound waves that could be a precursor to a tsunami, he said.

-- Phuket Gazette 2011-04-25

[Payboy]

They jury still out on whether we, the most intelligent of mammals, are responsible for Global Warming, er!...

WE, The MOST INTELLIGENT creatures in the universe :cheesy:

Laugh at yourself mate.